Diabetes

Slow Down and Savor or Expect Diabetes

If you eat fast, you have a greater risk of getting pre-diabetes. Fast feeding actually increases your chances by a whopping 50%. Pre-diabetes is also known as impaired glucose tolerance, or insulin resistance, which is a risk factor for the development of type 2 diabetes. It’s also the main reason that a lot of people have difficulty losing weight.

In this study, done by Japanese researchers, they found that compared to people who ate quickly, individuals who engaged in other behaviors that are touted to make you gain weight - like eating snacks or eating later a night - the same was not true.

Another reason to slow down and savor your food? You will feel fuller after eating. Researchers at Ohu University in Koriyama, Japan, found that when people who were obese, but nondiabetic, chewed their food only 5 times, the hormones related to satiety were lower than if they chewed their food 30 times.

More Chewing Releases Helpful Hormones

Thorough chewing stimulates the release of two chemical signals (called GLP-1 and Peptide YY) that reduce appetite and food intake in obese individuals.

After a 12-hour fast, subjects consumed a test meal in the early morning over a 20-minute period, chewing each mouthful 5 times. The meal consisted of bread, margarine, a boiled egg, steamed vegetables, a banana, and milk which amounted to about 630 calories.

On another day, they chewed 30 times. Levels of the two chemical messengers were measured before and 1 hour after the meal.

Researchers reported that the levels of both hormones after eating were significantly higher after chewing 30 times than after chewing 5 times.

According to the researchers, in Japan, chewing 30 times is recommended by the government to prevent obesity. And one of them remarked that being from Poland, "grandmothers always told growing children to eat slowly and to chew a lot, but they never gave any number of how many times to chew.” Luckily this research has shed a bit of light on this subject of savoring a meal.